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A Rolling Stone Gathers Money: Pebble Now at $5 Million Raised from 34,000 People on Kickstarter

This Pebble just keeps on rolling. Built by Waterloo-born startup Allerta, the iOS and Android smartwatch has now raised a staggering $5 million on Kickstarter—by far the most of any Kickstarter campaign ever—with a nearly a month left to raise further funding.

The story gets even better, now that it's been revealed by Bloomberg that venture capitalists turned down investing in Pebble. After raising a modest $375,000 from four angels, Canadian entrepreneur Eric Migicovsky couldn't squeeze a penny out of VCs—even in Silicon Valley.

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Meet Canada's New Preferred Marketing Developers for Facebook

Facebook today announced the combination of the Preferred Developed Consultant and Marketing API programs and the subsequent launch of the newly minted Preferred Marketing Developer program. There are now 232 of these developers spanning 35 countires. One of those countries is, of course, Canada.

So who are the Canadian preferred developers? The most notable PMD is Invoke Media, which was created by Vancouver entrepreneur Ryan Holmes—now the CEO of HootSuite, a $200-million, Canadian Startup Awards finalist—several years ago. Invoke, which is hiring, is a full-service digital agency specializing in social media, web, and mobile. Its most recent project is Foodee.

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Vancouver's Indochino takes Traveling Tailor on the Road to Ottawa

Vancouver's Indochino is continuing to expand their Traveling Tailor pop-up store concept. The Canadian startup is starting with their first stop in Eastern Canada—Ottawa—from April 24 to 28.

One of the reasons that Ottawa was chosen as the next location (after Vancouver and Calgary) was due to a large social media campaign by Ottawa citizens who utilized the hashtag #SuitUpOttawa on Twitter to get Indochino's attention.

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Startup Visa Program for Canada to be Announced Today?

11:30am EST Update: News Release - Minister Kenney launches consultations for a new “start-up visa” for immigrant entrepreneurs

According to an advisory issued by Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's office yesterday, the Canadian government is expected to announce in Toronto today the next step in launching a Startup Visa program.

While the details are still vague, Kenney and Dragon’s Den TV star Kevin O’Leary are apparently scheduled to make an announcement today regarding a new system aimed at identifying and speeding the path for "high value innovators."

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Eric Ries Shares Startup Lessons Learned in Toronto

On Tuesday, May 15, PwC invites startup founders and folks to their ninth annual Connecting Vision to Reality 2012 at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson Univeristy.

This year’s event will feature a keynote address by Eric Ries, entrepreneur, bestselling author of The Lean Startup and creator of the popular blog, Startup Lessons Learned, followed by a networking cocktail reception.

Register online now for this free event and get ready to discuss, collaborate, and share perspectives on how to create success.

Toronto Beta Startup StoreMaker Rebrands as FeedSeed, Prepares for Launch This Summer

Toronto startup StoreMaker is rebranding itself as FeedSeed. Founded in August 2011, the startup has been planning a public launch in July. 

“After a long search and much debate about different names, our team decided on FeedSeed,” said Mike Cunningham, CEO of FeedSeed. “We feel that it better explains our platform than StoreMarker did and to be honest, FeedSeed is easier to say.”

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Pebble Raises $3 Million from 21,000 People in 5 Days. Is Crowdfunding the New Venture Capitalism?

Last week, we wrote that Pebble—a smartwatch developed by Canadian Entrepreneur Eric Migicovsky—raised $1 million from 7,300 backers in just 24 hours on Kickstarter. Then we went on to report that, by the end of day two, that number had doubled to $2 million from 14,400 backers. This, despite the campaign's original goal of only $100,000, and the fact that the campaign still doesn't end for over a month.

While the pledging has slowed somewhat, Pebble has now cracked the next major milestone: $3 million. It took only five days to reach this number, 5,000% of the original goal.

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